describeとは 意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA: /dɪˈskɹaɪb/, /dəˈskɹaɪb/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: [dɪˈskɹaɪ̯b]
  • (米国発音) IPA: [dɪˈskɹaɪ̯b], [dɪˈskɹɑɪ̯b]
  • (Canada) IPA: [dɪˈskɹaɪ̯b], [dɪˈskɹəjb]
  • (General Australian) IPA: [dɪˈskɹɑɪ̯b]
  • (Standard Southern British) IPA: [dɪˈskɹɑjb]
• 韻: -aɪb
• ハイフネーション: de‧scribe

動詞

describe (third-person singular simple present describes, present participle describing, simple past and past participle described)

1. (transitive) To represent in words.

   The feeling is difficult to describe, but not unpleasant.

   The geographer describes countries and cities.

   Several witnesses describe seeing lights in the sky that night.

   • 1958 November, “Storm Damage in the Home Counties”, in Railway Magazine, page 746:

     Between 8 and 9 p.m., the recorder at a meteorological station at Harrow, Middlesex, picked up 1,470 lightning flashes within a radius of 10 to 15 miles, and observers at the station described the storm as "probably one of the most spectacular of the century."

   • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:

     […] his lordship was out of humour. That was the way Chollacombe described as knaggy an old gager as ever Charles had had the ill-fortune to serve. Stiff-rumped, that's what he was, always rubbing the rust, or riding grub, like he had been for months past.

   • 2014 November 2, Daniel Taylor, “Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United”, in The Guardian:

     Yet the truth is that City would probably have been coasting by that point if the referee, Michael Oliver, had not turned down three separate penalties, at least two of which could be accurately described as certainties.

   • 2024 January 27, Eliana Bollati, “Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrunner smashes two world records in just two days”, in Dexerto‎:

     Mae, who describes herself on Patreon as a 20-year-old university student from Canada, holds several world records for Baldur’s Gate 3 speedruns already — including her insane 4:15 any% speedrun.

   • 2024 August 28, John Miller and Sabrina Shulman, “FBI discovered a DHS document describing improvised explosive devices during investigation of Trump’s would-be assassin”, in CNN‎:

     Among the documents Donald Trump’s would-be-assassin studied while formulating his plans for an attack on the former president was a public document from the Department of Homeland Security, describing different kinds of improvised explosive devices and the number of explosives needed to inflict casualties over certain distances, a senior law enforcement official told CNN.

   • 2024 September 9, Katie Lobosco, “Fact check: Trump and Vance keep falsely describing how tariffs work”, in CNN‎:

     Former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance continue to falsely describe how one of their major policy proposals, across-the-board tariffs, would work.

2. (transitive) To represent by drawing; to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out.

   to describe a circle by the compasses;   a torch waved about the head in such a way as to describe a circle

   • 1826, James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans:

     Uncas described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans.

   • 1906, James George Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, volume 2, page 146:

     His body was contracted and bent towards them, and described an undulatory movement like that of a worm writhing.

3. (transitive, mathematics) To give rise to a geometrical structure.

   The function describes a very complex surface.

4. (transitive, taxonomy) To introduce a new taxon to science by explaining its characteristics and particularly how it differs from other taxa.

   The fungus was first described by a botanist.

5. (obsolete, transitive) To distribute into parts, groups, or classes; to mark off; to class.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 18:9:

     Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.

同意語

• (to represent in words): portray, betell, depict, report; see also Thesaurus:describe
• (to represent in writing): bewrite

派生語

関連する語

Further reading

• “describe”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “describe”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

アナグラム

• escribed